Top 13 anti Margaret Thatcher songs

Owen Adams gives us his top 13 anti Margaret Thatcher songs in a potent reminder of the power of the protest song.

FROM a very young age, I had nightmares about Margaret Thatcher ” even before she became prime minister.

During her time as education minister (1970-74), she earned the epithet “Maggie Thatcher, milk-snatcher”, and I equated her with the Land of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the East and sincerely hoped she’d be toppled from her broomstick and squashed by Dorothy’s tornado-uprooted house. How dare she take away our free milk! Hefner had the same idea when they incorporated the Munchkins’ celebratory verse Ding-Dong The Witch Is Dead” in their joyous anthem The Day That Thatcher Dies.

With the senile baroness slipping in and out of hospital, that day can’t be long coming now ” and the event has the potential of provoking some kind of civil war. While the political establishment ” no doubt Labour as well as Tories ”â will be solemnly wasting millions of taxpayers’ pounds on a grand State funeral, hundreds of thousands of us proles will be putting on our dancing shoes and saluting the Grim Reaper.

It’s often been said lately that David Cameron and his Etonian chums are trying to push through crippling reforms faster and harder than even Thatcher dared to. But in the post-Major era of airbrushed public image, it’s hard to really hate him because he appears so harmless. Smug maybe, but so placid-looking. Almost kindly. And we’re encouraged to feel sorry for his deputy, who apparently cries to himself at the sacrifices he’s having to make in order to save the nation from financial ruin. Aside from rapper NxtGen calling health secretary Andrew Lansley a “tosser” and “manky codger” and some agit-propping from underground scenesters such as The King Blues, Spanner and Captain Ska, anti-Tory anthems are thin on the ground this time around.

NXTGEN:

CAPTAIN SKA:

Besides, no sooner will someone have penned a strident protest song, then the Coalition will have made one of their so-called U-turns (so-called, because they will almost definitely try to slip the same policies through by a more sneaky route). Thatcher’s most famous slogan became “this lady is not for turning”. She seemed to thrive on being reviled as she merrily ploughed on at full throttle ” destroying beyond repair miners’ and working-class communities, and the notion of community and society itself.

While Cameron preaches the flaccid, unfeasible notion of the Big Society, he, helped by media magnates, the City and the entire remote political class, manages to blithely skirt around the poor and downtrodden; his mentor and predecessor left them for dead in the first place. She met the troublemakers head-on in her iron juggernaut, and bought the others in the midst off with the patriotic fervour of the Falklands War and the “right to buy”Â shares in what previously belonged to all of us (BT, British Gas etc) and council houses. Cameron and co are now engaged in finishing her work, while the Labour Party lies ineffectual, compromised and sold-out. It’s up to us ordinary disenfranchised, dispossessed folk to derail the gravy train ” next stop, June 30, mass strike. Everyone ready?

While we’re marching these days to techno (the black bloc’s music of choice) or insipid indie (check UKUncut’s J30 promo), we should all be getting our playlists ready for the Thatcher Death Disco and remembering the golden era and perhaps, maybe, giving inspiration to a new generation of angry songwriters.

Like countless others of my generation, much of my political education came from Crass and their record sleeves. Their relentless ” and healthy – disdain for Thatcher reached a crescendo on Sheep Farming In The Falklands, from whence How Does It Feel came. It was castigated in Parliament and an attempt to prosecute the band for obscenity. The publicity only helped to ensure the EP’s massive underground success. There were plenty of other anti-Falklands songs, but this was the most brutally laid bare: “You smile in the face of the death cause you are so proud and vain/ Your inhumanity stops you from realising the pain/ That you inflicted, you determined, you created, you ordered/ It was your decision to have those young boys slaughtered.”

2. Robert Wyatt: Shipbuilding

Given the treatment by both Wyatt and Elvis Costello on a double A-sided single in 1982, Wyatt’s is the most heart-wrenching version. I can recall seeing the patriotic bunting up on the estate outside my window as the more fortunate local soldiers returned from Thatcher’s election-boosting war as this 45 was on the family turntable.

3. Billy Bragg: Between The Wars

In the halcyon years of Top Of The Pops, you had Steve Wright on primetime TV introducing this “evocative song” in the days when socialism was a credible opposition to the evils of Thatcherism. She put paid to that. “Sweet moderation, the heart of this nation, desert us not” Bragg pleaded, but no answer came.

4. The The: Heartland

Sometimes the gentler songs are imbued with far more power than the shouty ones. Matt Johnson explored our “special relationship” as the “51st state” while lambasting Thatcher for presiding over the land where “pensioners are raped and their hearts are being cut from the welfare state”. He adds: “Let the poor drink their milk while the rich drink their honey/ Let the bums count their blessings, while they count their money”. We’re still waiting for Utopia and for Hell to freeze over.

5. Dub Syndicate: No Alternative But To Fight

When your cup of disgust runneth over and you run out of words, say it with dub’¦ with a Dalek-ised Thatcher sample.

I’d like to add a vote for ‘Margaret Thatcher, We Still Hate You’ by Terry Edwards & The Scapegoats.

And ‘I’m In Love With Margaret Thatcher’ by the Notsensibles wins it on the irony ticket (at least, I *think* they were being ironic…)

It’s interesting that although the present government (you could argue previous governments, too) are pushing the Thatcherite agenda far further than Maggie herself ever did, there has been no comparable surge of rock ‘n’ roll diatribes. Maybe we’re all desensitized now – we just accept that This Is The Way It Is.

Or maybe it’s simply that we don’t have one obvious hate figure. It’s hard to demonise David Cameron, this affable young chap who talks about ‘liberal Conservatism’ and likes The Smiths.

Sorry but TtDD should be #1 on the list. No question. It’ll be the soundtrack to the evening’s celebrations in my house (along with the sound of champagne corks popping!) I’ll be wearing my ‘Cortonwood 1984-85′ NUM badge with pride that day.

How about a song for all the working class families who now own there council home worth hundreds of thousands due to mrs t.
Let’s. Never forget she destroyed the dictator scar gill and his bully boys. Let’s never forget she didn’t cave into the Irish fascists on suicide. So let’s don’t kid ourselves she wasn’t all bad.

Though not directly aimed at Thatcher ‘The The – Story of the Blues’ captures the hopelessness of the era for those disenfranchised by the bitches policies. On a side note and seeing as here we are again, where are all the protest songs from today’s youth? And, why are we not seeing an updated version of the ‘poll-tax’ riots? Too busy watching ‘Pop Idol’ getting their nails done, ripping thier six packs up etc?

What about Scottish anarcho’s Oi Polloi – Who Voted Tory, a scathing attack on the Tory government al a Crass style. Also must agree with everyone who mentioned Elvis Costello – Tramp The Dirt Down, absolutely sublime.

Tears For Fears “Sowing the seeds of love” is a real dig at Thatcher…..”Politician granny with your high ideals; Have you no idea how the majority feels: So without love, and a promised land: We’re fools to the rules of a Government plan: Kick out the Style, bring back The Jam” (“Kick out the Style, bring back The Jam” is a reference that Paul Weller said a lot more about politics/Conservative Party when he was frontman of The Jam vs when he was with The Style Council).

Ding dong, the witch is dead! Rejoice, rejoice! Whilst we are at it, one song on my iPod ‘thatcher’s death day’ playlist (yes, it’s been set up waiting for an airing for several years) that I don’t think has been mentioned here…. ‘Tyler Smiles’, Attila the Stockbroker. Pissed on champagne and flying the red flag on suburbia as I write…..

Check out The Cancer Detectives’ song “Confessions of A Greengrocer’s Daughter” on side two of their album “London Observations” – written and sung by the multi-talented and much-missed genius Paul Shorthouse. (The CancerDetectives can be found on SoundCloud.)

The Last Resort, We Don’t Care….’the government policies are out of hand, they ain’t got a clue how to run this land, margaret thatcher the stupid old bitch, takes from the poor to give to the rich….Smashing stuff to a then spotty 14 year old!

All this anti Thatcher statements and so called songs is distateful and disrespectful to a Lady who made Britain proud by taking hard decisions. Most of you idiots were not even born when she was PM and/or arrived in the UK illegally.

How about some good oldies as well like, Underneath the lamplight and there’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of dover or perhaps a bit later like, I can’t let Maggie go or your gonna burn by the crazy world of Arthur Brown or later still, Evil Woman by E..L.O. and of course there’s that one the old bitch refused to wave the tax on, Do They Know it’s Christmas ? Very appropriate, if
only everyone could play that at the same time ! ! And of course there’s the one about her new phone number Transelvainia 65000 ! ! ! Bye All and Have a great party, I know I Will ! ! “Power To The People”.

While Big Country’s Steeltown album lead with an anti-Reagan song Flame of the West, other songs like Steeltown and Just a Shadow spoke about general economic realities of the times: “I know there is no need for what’s been done/I know there is enough for everyone/Frustration brings a heavy hand to bear/And there never is a hand outside that cares”

Maybe I’m old school, but I wonder if anybody’s working on a CD compilation?

Yeah Copey wrote some very cutting lyrics on the Peggy Suicide album just check out Leper Skin which was all about poll tax and it turning neighbour against neighbour…But it seems an old post punk/ goth band Ausgang seems to of been over looked with the classic The Lady is for Burning!! Seems like the Tories have still got the last laugh on just how much that hideous creatures funeral cost.I saw some Tory boy on the ch4 news ya know The Tim bright but dim type geeing up the crowd and i nearly did what that angry lorry driver did when the pistols were on the Bill Grundy show or Rik from the young ones and almost put my bloody boot through the screen. But the truth is she has gone now so we can sleep soundly in our beds.Now if only Cameron & Osborne could follow suit it would make for a lot better country!!

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“The Guns of Brixton” (The Clash)
Any political Pink Floyd song since Animals. That’s probably why Wish You Were Here was both Gilmour’s and Wright’s favorite Floyd album, because Waters wasn’t so politically bitter and it was just about the musicianship and the craft.
Anyway, FUCK YOU MAGGIE!